Hostile Takeover (Vale Investigation Book One) Read online

  Of course, a few things got in the way of my search, like the fact that most of the vehicles I’d seen last night were now gone, to work or wherever for the day, and any new ones I saw in the driveways weren’t a match for the car at the center of my search. My conclusion was that I hadn’t driven down the road far enough. At the wheel of my trusty Honda, I could expand my search parameters. Surely that would help me.

  As the sun went down, the only thing I had to show for my troubles was a near-empty tank of gas, a convenience store turkey sandwich and another fifth of Jack. Oh, and the cruddy feeling of grime and dirt that was enveloping my skin from the suit I’d worn for the last three days. But I knew—knew in the sense that a grieving man could know anything—that I just hadn’t looked in the right place yet. I’d search again tomorrow…and the day after that…and the day after that. However long it took, I’d find him. It was all I had left to live for.

  That last fact of my new existence was brought home to me when I drove back to the house the next day. I was now sober and had experienced a night out in the boat. In theory, that should have been enough to coax me back into what was my family’s house. But this time, the reluctance was worse…much worse. I couldn’t even bring myself to step onto the porch, never mind open the front door. I glanced at the mailbox in front of the driveway and realized I couldn’t bear to look in that, either. Both of them were pieces of a puzzle I no longer belonged to.

  The feeling grew even more pronounced when I looked at my phone. I had it on Do Not Disturb mode for the entire day. My search needed my full concentration, and condolence calls would only get in the way of that. I saw another laundry list of texts and voicemail messages asking after me. One of them was from my mom in Chicago, begging me to respond to her so she’d know I was okay.

  For some reason, that one from her… I lost it. I was anything but okay. As far as I was concerned, I’d never be okay again. All I wanted to do was crawl into the grave with Marissa and Line, and let the dirt cover us all. But I was still here…still hurting.

  After I put the phone back in my coat pocket, I pulled out the fifth of Jack from the other one. I slugged down half the bottle without taking a breath. I barely felt the burn of it going into my stomach as I crawled back under the boat tarp. I managed to finish it off before passing out.

  *

  I woke up the next morning with another hangover, an ugly headache shooting through my head like silicon stripes in a computer chip. My stomach whined at me about how empty it felt, making unpleasant noises that was a match for the acid sloshing around in it. It took me a second to realize that neither one of these things were what woke me up.

  It was a voice. It was on the other side of the house, knocking on the front door while calling my name. Could it be Marissa…?

  Then I remembered what happened to Marissa, and my soul fell back into the pit I’d been living in for the last three days. I groaned as I pushed the tarp off the boat and rose.

  The morning was bright and clear, a sunny, cloudless day that Line would have loved. She would have run around the house, laughing as I tried to catch her. I felt my jaw clench at the thought.

  I transferred some of that tension to my hands to help me get over the side of the boat, and I nearly fell into the dirt. My equilibrium was so screwed up that it made catching myself nearly impossible.

  I managed to pick myself up when I finally saw the voice’s owner. My mom was an older woman in her mid-sixties, wearing a dark dress blouse and slacks that matched the black-framed square glasses on her face. The skin under her neck had become fleshy with age, but her face retained its roundness and relative lack of lines. The hands raised over her mouth had a few visible veins and liver spots on the back of them. Her right ring finger had light skin where a couple of wedding bands once lived. She wasn’t particularly tall, and she had a bit of stockiness to her that came with age.

  Time hadn’t been kind to my mom, in any sense of the word. She’d gone through two divorces, one major stroke that still scrambled her thinking, and a long estrangement with me when I married Marissa instead of coming back home. All this weakened her health to the point where long-distance travel was usually a nonstarter for her. Yet here she was, looking at me in horror as she saw what grief had done to me. All in all, she looked like she was doing better than I was.

  “Bellamy, honey, what the hell?” she whispered as she crossed the distance between us to give me a hug. The damp aroma of last night’s fifth wafted off me as she squeezed, making me ashamed and embarrassed. After it became obvious she wasn’t going to say anything about it, I reluctantly hugged her back.

  When she broke off the hug, she looked at me with fearful eyes. “I’ve been worried sick about you since I got the news. Your boss, he’s the one who called me. What’s happened to you, son?”

  I didn’t have an answer for her. A lot of mixed emotions I’d tried to bury came screaming out of their tomb at the sight of her. Combined with my hangover, it made snappy answers a lot harder to come by.

  Her eyes took in my attire, and she frowned in disapproval. “God, you’re filthy! What have you been doing the last two days?”

  “Looking,” was all I could say.

  “Looking for what?”

  “Answers,” I said, rubbing my palm across the three days’ worth of stubble on my cheek. “I haven’t found any yet.”

  Her frown deepened. “Well, you’ll never find them at the bottom of whatever bottle you chugged last night.”

  “That’s not for answers,” I snapped, feeling a surge of anger. “That’s for the pain.”

  The tears returned at those words. Even with the bad blood between us, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt my mother today of all days. Please, God, or whoever’s in charge, I quietly prayed, help her understand where I’m coming from.

  “Your pain? What about my pain, making me worry that you’d gotten yourself killed in some fool fashion?”

  Apparently, nobody was listening at the Divine Help Desk. “Can we just not, Mom? Not today.”

  Her eyes softened at my words. “I’m sorry, Bellamy…Sure. The last thing you need is some old woman judging you on your grief.”

  Okay, maybe somebody up there is listening after all.

  “Why don’t we go inside and talk?” she asked, her voice brightening just a little too much for my liking.

  I tensed up as she took my arm. “How about…just staying on the porch? I don’t think I can…”

  There was a flash of irritation in Mom’s eyes before she cooled her smile a little and said, “Of course…whatever makes you comfortable, son.”

  I took two steps up to the porch, then froze. I turned abruptly, twisting out of Mom’s grip, and sat down. Thankfully, she took it in stride, sitting down beside me as though she was planning on doing that all along. I was beginning to wonder if I’d have the strength to enter that empty place ever again.

  She looked over her shoulder and casually said, “It’s a nice house. Have you had it long?”

  “About three years,” I said. “Got a decent price for it and a…a good view of the mountains.”

  God, that sounds so asinine. Why am I even telling her this?

  “Well…it’s a cute house. You did good, Bellamy.”

  I grunted noncommittally. I had to fight the urge to just stand up and walk towards my car. That’s when I noticed that Mom’s rental, a Toyota Civic, was blocking off the Honda’s exit. I knew she did that on purpose. I’d walked away from too many unpleasant conversations with her. And she apparently didn’t want me skipping this one.

  “You know, it’s funny,” she said, trying for a laugh she didn’t feel, “all the things that seem important until you’re faced with what’s really important…like family.”

  My whole body tensed up this time. Her talking about family was never a good sign. When I was growing up, damn near every
member of her blood family betrayed her at one time or another. So she dumped all the things she would have told a husband, sibling or best friend onto my shoulders. I wound up feeling like I barely had time to be her son.

  “I may have been a little too…harsh about that wonderful woman you married,” she began.

  “Don’t you mean the ‘shameless slut who’ll ditch you as soon as she’s figured out an escape plan’?” I countered. She’d thrown that description out enough that I could recite her exact words in my sleep.

  “I’m not proud of that, Bellamy,” she said, tears misting her own eyes. “But I was just worried about you, like I’ve always been.”

  “No, you weren’t. You were worried about you, like you’ve always been.”

  Her eyes turned stormy. “You don’t get to talk to me like that—”

  “Would you prefer I wait until you’re dead? If I can’t talk about where I think you went wrong now that I’ve grown, I don’t know when I can.”

  “And what about where you went wrong?” she snapped back. “Five months in juvie and lucky not to do hard time as well…and that was just the one time you got caught. I know there were other times you did exactly the same thing and got away with it.”

  I winced at her words. Anyone else, I’d have hit them for mouthing off. But this was my mom, the one person I never can hide myself from. She knew all my secrets, all my buttons, all my weak points. And she was shameless enough to use them to get what she wanted from me.

  Guess we both screwed up our respective part of the parent-child relationship.

  Mom sighed and rubbed her thighs, her usual tell for trying to wrestle her temper under control. “I didn’t come here to fight you, Bell. I just…I was worried about you, like I said.”

  “I know, Mom,” I answered and it was the truth. I never doubted my mother’s love for me, no matter how much we went at each other. I’d just given up on her knowing what was best for me.

  “I suppose that your wife never forgave me for slandering her so,” she went on to say, taking my hand. It hung in her grip like a dead fish.

  “Actually,” I said, my thoughts a long way from the porch, my voice distant as I gazed at nothing, “Marissa talked about moving out to Chicago. She wanted Line to know her grandmother, because you’re about the only extended blood family either of us has.”

  The sheen of tears filled my mother’s eyes. “You mean that your wife didn’t—”

  “No, she came up in foster care. Cold City’s better about that kind of thing than most cities; it’s one of the reasons why she never moved away before she met me. But she always wanted a family of her own.”

  Then I looked at Mom, and it took everything I had to keep the lump in my throat from closing off my vocal chords. “About a…week ago, maybe…we were actually talking about moving you out here. I mean, Chicago’s getting crazier these days and—”

  “Chicago is being Chicago,” Mom said with a firm shake of her head. “It’s never going to settle down and I never want it to. And I am way too old to start somewhere else.” She tightened her grip on my hand and pulled me a little closer. “But you’re still young. You’ve got time. Why don’t you move back in with me?”

  And there it was…the reason I’d run into the willing arms of the United States Navy two days after my high school graduation. Like I said, I never doubted my mother’s love. But I got old enough to doubt that being around it was healthy for me. However hard Uncle Sam made my life, it was summer camp compared to the smothering pillow of Mom’s attachment.

  “I can’t leave, Mom,” I said, my voice hollow. “I need to find him.”

  “Him?” Mom asked, looking puzzled.

  “The guy who hit them,” I explained. “The guy who killed my life…I need to find him.”

  The puzzlement gave way to alarm. “No, you don’t, son. That’s what landed you in juvie all those years ago. You need to—”

  “Don’t tell me what I need!” I yelled, yanking my hand out of hers and standing up. I glared at her with all the hatred I could muster. Damn her for coming here and once again pushing her problems onto me. There was never a good time for that, but this was the absolute worst.

  “What is wrong with you?” Mom yelled back, getting in my face as she did it.

  I was just angry enough not to care about how close her face was. “Nothing’s wrong! That’s what’s wrong! The world’s still turning. People are still getting up in the morning to go to their jobs. The mail still runs on time. But me?” I didn’t bother holding back the sobs that slowed down the rest of my response. “My world ended and it didn’t matter…to anyone. They may as well have never existed. All I’ve got left to look forward to is visiting their graves every day. Nobody else will.”

  I couldn’t face her anymore. I damn near ran to the big tree in the front yard, the one with a rope swing I’d put in for Line last year. I grabbed the ropes and I yanked on them, trying to pull them down. I yanked as hard as I could, feeling the rope burn my hands as the branch refused to give. I picked that branch for a reason.

  Four tugs later, I collapsed back to the ground in tears, burying my face in the swing seat. At some point, Mom actually came up behind me and rubbed my back. I almost wanted to believe her lies about how everything would be okay.

  *

  The next few weeks are still a hazy blur in my memory. Most of it is just a thick cloud of smog wrapped up in a ball of pain. The pain of living without my family stood out the most, which is probably why my memory is so shit about the finer details.

  A few details stick out here and there. I let Mom take care of the funeral arrangements for Marissa and Line. I just wasn’t up to it. I don’t think I ever would have been. Hell, I wasn’t even up to the actual funeral itself. Mom did her best to make sure I’d make it, got me cleaned up, got me a new suit and programmed an alarm for when it was time to go.

  But I decided that extra rations of whiskey were more important. I was passed out in the boat that entire afternoon.

  Mom went back to Not-So-Sweet-Home Chicago the day after.

  She did do one other thing before she left. When I agreed to have her handle the funeral, she had me sign some papers that I didn’t bother reading. You could have handed me a murder confession and I wouldn’t have blinked before putting my John Hancock on it. One of those papers gave her the authority to sell the house. It was snapped up about a week and a half after the funeral. I wasn’t sure who was more shocked: me learning that someone else was now the owner, or the new owners looking at the deteriorated state of me, still in that suit I puked over the day of the funeral.

  Still, I couldn’t get too mad at my mom about that. The moment where I could bring myself to walk into that house never came. So I was a little relieved that I’d never have to see it again. The new owner was even nice enough to haul the dinghy all the way to the docks for me. I had to pay for the privilege of keeping it there, but I could afford it.

  I’d always been careful about my cash. That was the one good habit my ex-accountant mother instilled in me from an early age. It’s why I had more than enough to pay for the funeral. I still had cash in my checking and savings to afford gas for my car, along with food and booze for my belly. Marissa and I had just started saving for Line’s college fund, something I tried not to think about too much.

  In fact, I tried to do as little thinking as I could get away with. All the Jack helped with that problem. It almost made up for Bob leaving a message firing me from the firm, the runaround I got from Sergeant Morgan every time I called, and still coming up with nothing on my search for the car…almost.

  I learned my lesson from the second day of searching, and I cruised Mount Peter at night. After another week passed, I went past that road, closer to the mountains. The further I went, the quicker my gas tank ran dry. I carried some Jack with me in the passenger seat, always keeping the cap o
n it closed tight. Last thing I needed was an open container charge. Of course, you could say the same about a DUI charge. But that thought never crossed my mind while the Jack was doing its work.

  Finally, the inevitable happened. I was down to the choice of renting the space for my boat or putting gas in my car. I chose the one that would give me my preferred place to live.

  The Honda didn’t move from its spot for two weeks after that. That’s when I started walking everywhere.

  I started with the notion that I could get to Mount Peter on foot. But it turned out to be murder on my feet to walk from one end of the city to the other. Plus, I was always tired when I got to that road. That’s when I told myself that maybe the guy I was looking for was in the city anyway. He pulled a fast one on all of us—me, the cops, any other interested parties. But he wouldn’t be expecting me to look for him here. And wouldn’t he be surprised when I finally found him.

  Rationalization is a seductive bitch. That’s my only excuse for ever believing that line of thought was ever anywhere close to kosher. The men I found on those same streets as me no doubt fell prey to the same siren call. I found myself stepping over homeless people working on becoming biodegradable. I kept a wary eye on junkies whose jones were bad enough to try something desperate. A couple of streets were full of nothing but hookers at night, plying their trade under the streetlights for the line of cars passing by. A few career criminals did their business in some of the spots I frequented. Hell, I even ran a few messages for them for some quick cash.

  After a certain point, I blended in with the local scene enough to be invisible myself. My clothes were tattered and the day before the funeral was the last time I took a shower. A brown paper bag held my regular bottle of Jack. Every once in a while, I’d even share it. That gesture of goodwill directed me to things like the local soup kitchen, where to stay away from after dark, or where I could get a fresh pair of sneakers when my old ones fell apart. It was a side of Cold City I’d never known before the hit-and-run; now I was beginning to think I’d never know anything else.